A Grandidi Day Out
by LunarCry
Summary: A training session for upandcoming SeeDs in the Grandidi Forest area goes horribly wrong . . .
1. Chapter 1

**A Grand-idi Day Out**  
~LunarCry~   
  


Taking in a huge breath of fresh air, Squall strode down the stairs of the Ragnarok. As he reached the bottom, he cast his eyes over the great knot of cliff and trees that was Grandidi Forest. His face fell into a characteristic frown.

He was nearly knocked off his feet from behind when Rinoa flew off the staircase and out from under the shadow of the huge ship. The heat bounced off her immediately, and she smiled radiantly.

"We couldn't have picked a better day for it," she said to Squall, as he appeared by her side, his eyes on the vast stretches of forest.

"We shouldn't have picked a day at all," was his stoic reply.

"Oh, come on, Squall!" Quistis said cheerily, her boots clacking against the ground. Selphie had landed the Ragnarok as close to the forests as she could, so that they wouldn't have stony cliffs to sit on while they waited for the day to run its course, but the land was still mostly rock. "The weather's beautiful!"

Zell bounced to his other side, clapping him on the shoulder. "Yeah, this'll be great! You've been working too hard anyway, and you need a break!"

"It might be working hard for you, Zell, but it's working normally for me. And this isn't what I'd call a break!"

Quistis turned and waved at the cockpit of the gleaming crimson dragon. "Okay, Irvine, send them down!"

Squall pivoted on his heel and watched with something akin to horror as thirty or forty young kids came storming down the gangplank, yelling and hooting wildly. His face fell, and he held his head in one gloved hand. 

"This was _such_ a bad idea -"

Quistis released a frustrated sigh, clenching her fists. "Squall, we had no other choice! They're bored of the training centre, and they're even bored of the forest! Were you really that surprised that so many SeeDs volunteered to come?"

She obviously hadn't _meant_ to imply criticism of Squall's methods of running the Garden, but he visibly stiffened. Quistis was instantly repentant.

"It's not you boring them, Squall. You've trained them all to such high standards that even the T-Rexaurs don't willingly engage in battles anymore. They need something to challenge them."

"Grandidi Forest's not a 'challenge' for the uninitiated," he groaned. "It's suicide!"

"This'll show them that battles aren't all as straightforward as they look," Rinoa put in, grinning at the thought.

Squall looked around at his friends' eager faces, and sighed. They'd already won.

_But there're gonna be some pretty disappointed parents when we get back, wondering how Squall Leonhart, of all people, let their little babies get eaten alive by malboros . . ._

"Okay, already!" He held up his hands in surrender. "I'm just wondering how the hell you're gonna keep fifty-six junior classmen alive in a forest infested with malboros and hexadragons!"

"Oh, there will be injuries, I expect, but that's all to the greater good," Quistis said, smiling in that irritatingly patronising way. 

"That's why I came along," a deep, jovial female voice boomed from behind him, and he whirled to find himself face to face with none other than . . .

"Dr. Kadowaki!" He shot a venomous look at Quistis, who was giggling incessantly. Irvine and Selphie had also descended the stairway, and were striding towards the slowly growing group of 'staff'. "Don't tell me _you_ agree with this, too!"

"Making mistakes is the quickest way to learn, Squall, my dear. And they will learn!"

Squall let a growl of annoyance loose. "They're just kids! They can't go up against -"

"It's three SeeDs to a team of no less than six," Quistis slipped in smoothly, still smiling unnervingly. "Plenty of protection, even for the younger classmen."

"Ooooh!" Squall threw his hands up in aggravation. "Do you deliberately try to annoy me?!"

That set them all off laughing, and he frowned, inclining his body away from them slightly and folding his arms.

"Whatever . . . You realise that if anything happens, it's my head on the block?"

Quistis grinned. "But nothing _will,_ happen. Will it, Squall?"

"I give in."

"Thought you would!" Selphie beamed at him, punching the air. Apparently she'd been looking forward to this little 'field trip' as much as the students! But he couldn't call this a field trip when it was so far from Balamb - the northeastern tip of the Eastern Continent, to be precise. He distracted himself from his anxiety by focusing on Irvine's arm, which was wrapped loosely about Selphie's shoulders . . . the two were still as inseparable as ever.

"All right," he said with a gusty sigh. He waved vaguely in the direction of the junior classmen, their throng now being penetrated by grinning SeeDs. He recognised Nida and Xu making their way towards him. "Break them in, Quistis."

She switched to what Zell laughingly called 'Instructor Mode', and began to lecture the young students. While their attention was diverted, Rinoa slipped her arms around his waist, and rested her head against his chest.

"Wait till they're all off malboro hunting," she whispered, for his ears only, "and then I'll show you why I _really_ wanted to come on this trip."

Squall coughed, and hurriedly broke away from her when Quistis pointed the rest of the staff out to the students.

"Remember what I said about the groups! If you can, avoid the hexadragons and _definitely_ avoid the malboros unless the SeeDs you're with know what they're doing!" She pointed at the Ragnarok, and cracked her whip against the ground to emphasise her next point. "You can come back here if you get lost, separated or injured. Dr. Kadowaki will look after anyone who gets hurt, so don't try to play the hero and stay on as long as you can! Stick together, and we want you back at sunset." It was already midday, and unbearably hot. Quistis wiped sweat from her brow before she continued. "We'll set the siren off at that time so you'll know when and where to come back to. Okay, I _did_ tell you all to sort out your groups _before_ we left, but predictably, some of you will have forgotten to so do it now!"

There was a sort of mass hysteria as children and older SeeDs started running around in a frenzy, forcing Quistis to crack her whip again to calm them all down. Squall watched them with despair.

_Discipline . . . I try so damn hard and it all comes down to . . . nothing!_

Beside him, Zell was giving Nida a high-five. He glanced at them, his eyes widening as five junior classmen came running up to the pair and hovering around them protectively.

"Zell! _You're_ taking a group out?"

"Hell, yeah! Gonna kick some malboro, uh, behind," he corrected when he realised the ages of his companions.

"Zell, you're supposed to _avoid_ the malboros -" Squall said through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, yeah, of course we are." Zell's wink was not reassuring.

"Right, we're sorted!" Quistis shouted over the furore. She pointed in the direction of the Grandidi Forests. "Be careful around the cliff edges! Off you go! Have fun!"

_"Have fun," she says! Hope she reminded them about status defence . . ._

"See ya, guys!" Zell grinned, and raced off with Nida and the young students. Rinoa giggled.

"I bet he'll have loads of kids when he gets older," she said with a grin.

"Hey, wait, I thought it was three SeeDs to a -"

"Oh, have a little faith in Zell, Squall," Rinoa berated him harshly. "Him and Nida will be more than enough to beat up a few malboros."

Quistis was laughing with Xu over something. Squall ground his teeth together - it looked like everyone was happy about this except him. He called out to the pair when they started walking off towards the forest.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Quistis turned and fixed him with a challenging smile. "I'm off malboro hunting." She flexed her weapon expertly. "I need a few tentacles for a new whip. Xu's coming along, too."

Squall arched one eyebrow, plastering a cynical expression onto his face.

_She's determined to push me as far as possible, isn't she? She knew I could call off this whole thing with just one word . . ._

"Bye, Squall!"

She and Xu disappeared into the greenery. Feeling physically drained by the constant battle of wills he and Quistis always seemed to share, he sighed and let his arms relax around Rinoa, who had been quick to resume the embrace that had been interrupted beforehand.

"They'll be fine, Squall," she said at her most reassuring. He averted his gaze from the forest, where he could hear quite easily the sound of happy laughter and vibrant conversation. Looking down at her, he felt himself melt into her affectionate expression. If it weren't for Rinoa . . .

_I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for her._

"Please relax a little, Squall?" Her pleading look played havoc with his emotions.

_Ah, come on, what's the worst that could happen? Lighten up!_

Squall smiled, and buried his face in Rinoa's hair.

"Okay," he whispered.

***

"So, how bad _are_ malboros, Zell?" Gina asked, hopping up and down on the spot.

"Real evil mothers, guys," Zell said, turning to face his group of kids with a grin. "Stinky breath, too!"

"But, Zell, we can't fight _really_ tough monsters! We'll get slaughtered!"

Zell leaned back, puffing out his chest. He rapped his fist against it. "Hey, that's why I'm here. Ain't no malboro gonna eat anyone while I'm around!"

Nida rolled his eyes, grinning. Zell was positively lapping the attention up. And all the students had fixed him with an admiring gaze as he once again repeated the story of his battle against the sorceress. Nida had heard it so many times that he sighed and kept a vigilant watch on the rear of the party. It was strange how Zell's role in saving the world seemed to increase with each re-telling of the tale. Although he'd trust Zell with his life, the guy wasn't known for his common sense. Better to stick to mesmerize monsters if they could - easy enough to kill, and with useful curative magic to be drawn. Nida was running low on that, and hoped to stock up. 

"How powerful?" one of the kids piped up, startling Nida back into the present.

"Oh, only the most powerful spell known so far on the planet," Zell said, staring at his fingernails unconcernedly. "Apocalypse is even stronger than Ultima or Holy! But see, we SeeDs got the better of her easily enough. We just drew and cast the spell on her!"

"I bet she was miffed," David grinned, clenching his fists. He was the youngest of their party, and absolutely besotted with Zell. "Serves her right for messing with SeeDs!"

"That's right!" Zell nodded furiously, swatting at an absolutely huge insect with one fist. "Ah, this reminds me of the time before the sorceress, when us six had to come through here to get materials for new weapons."

Nida hid his smile with one hand. 

_He's only nineteen, but he acts as if he's ninety! Recounting tales of past glory . . . sheesh!_

But the kids were lapping it up. Suddenly, Nida heard a low-pitched muttering.

"Hey, stop!" he hissed. The kids turned and looked at him inquisitively. Zell continued talking for a few minutes before he realised no one was listening to him, and finally looked at what Nida had spotted.

Two mesmerizes were grazing in a clearing to the left, swaying their large horns left and right as they nickered softly to themselves. The kids gasped and grinned at each other.

"Go on then," Zell whispered. "We'll watch you beat 'em!"

The students drew their weapons and charged with a fierce battle cry, assaulting the two monsters with more vigour than Nida had ever seen in such young SeeD candidates. He leaned back against a tree, grinning at Zell as he approached.

"They're pretty good!" Zell said enthusiastically, watching as the first of the mesmerizes was felled.

"SeeD standards have improved since Cid retired."

"You mean, since Squall became leader?" Zell nudged him, smiling slyly.

Nida blushed. "Uh, yeah." He held a great deal of respect for Squall . . . he just wished the stoic leader would notice him more.

"Has he started noticing you yet?"

"A little more than he used to. I'm just one of those guys who doesn't really stand out much."

Zell sat down on a rotting tree stump. "Squall and Rinoa are besotted with each other. She balances him out. Otherwise his seriousness would be unbearable."

Nida stared at Zell, surprised by how serious _he_ was being. He would never admit it, but he liked Squall's cynical attitude. He'd never met anyone like the young gunblade-specialist before.

"Look, look!" And the SeeD candidates came charging back into the trees, carrying two large, curved horns with them - prizes from their defeated opponents.

"Hey, mesmerize blades!" Zell greeted them heartily, ruffling hair and patting shoulders left, right and centre. "You can make pretty good weapons with those, you know."

They continued on into the forest. Nida could tell that Zell was anxious to show the students how good a fighter he was, but so far, they hadn't seen any hexadragons or malboros. 

_Damn, it's hot!_ Nida pulled off his SeeD jacket and swung it over his shoulder. He couldn't remember it being this warm in a long while. Quistis had received a reply from Laguna himself about the weather in this part of world, and he'd confirmed that it would be warm, but Nida hadn't expected it to be _this_ hot!

It was sweaty work, clambering through the dense jungle. There was a strange lack of monsters that both Zell and Nida had noticed, and exchanged puzzled glances over. While they refreshed themselves by a small stream, Zell said to him:

"Hey, where the hell are all the monsters?"

"I've no idea. Not even a hexadragon. The junior classmen are gonna be pretty disappointed if they can't find anything to fight!"

Zell pursed his lips, his boyish face contorting with the effort of trying to figure out where all the creatures of the forest had gotten to. "Could the heat make them hide?"

"I doubt it. Laguna said in his reply that it's hot for most of the year in this part of the world."

"We should go visit Esthar later. And Ellone, too. Haven't seen her in a while."

Nida was about to reply an affirmative, but breathed through his nose and almost gagged on the putrid stench that had suddenly appeared. His eyes watered, but his hearing was fine and he could hear the alarmed shouts of the junior classmen.

"Malboro," Zell spluttered, holding his gloved hand up to his mouth, tears streaming down his face. "But . . . where?!"

The stream area was devoid of malboro life! So where was the smell coming from?

Something suddenly burst up from the ground where the two young SeeDs were standing. Nida was thrown forward, but deftly leapt to his feet, drawing his sword instantly.

It was definitely a malboro. The great, green, tentacular mass with teeth couldn't be mistaken for anything else. And yet . . .

It looked darker, bigger even, than any malboro Nida had ever seen. And its stench was nauseating! Malboros didn't usually smell this bad until _after_ they'd let off a Bad Breath attack!

"Zell! What's up with this one?"

"Beats me, Nida! Make sure you've -"

Nida had a feeling Zell had been about to remind him to check his status defence, but he never got the chance because more soil was exploding from the floor, and another two malboros were writhing their way to the surface. The junior classmen were screaming now, the youngest of them cowering in the middle of the stream, for yet another tentacular monster had appeared on the other bank. These looked more grey than green, Nida thought distractedly, as he bounded down to the stream and in front of the kids. Zell was hovering at the other end of the tightly knit group of terrified students, fists clenched and ready for action.

The stench of so many malboros was almost more than he could bear. Nida found himself getting dizzy, but ignored the feeling as much as he could in favour of protecting the trainee SeeDs.

"Uh, Nida, I hate to say it, but this was not what I had in mind when I said I wanted to a fight malboros!"

"I hope you're packing a decent GF -"

"Quezacotl! No good against them! You?"

It was difficult for Nida to decimate the hope in Zell's question, but he shook his head. "I brought Leviathan along for the hexadragons, but . . ."

"What are you gonna do?!" the kids were screaming frantically. 

"Chill, guys! Everything's under control!" Zell yelled.

"Really?" Gina's small voice was tremulous.

"Uh," Zell hesitated only briefly as the strange malboros began to descend the slope of the bank, "really!"

Nida called on some magic and cast Firaga on the nearest malboro. It shrieked with pain, but didn't go down. Nida hadn't really expected it to after just one spell, but it never hurt to hope.

"Junior classmen! Tell me you brought magic along!"

"We only have the lowest levels!"

Malboros didn't usually attack in packs. The one he'd hit with the spell seemed to giving off an even worse odour than before. If they didn't get away soon, Nida was going to lose his lunch. A desperate look back at Zell's pale face told him his friend was in the same situation. Even breathing through his mouth didn't make it any easier - then he could _taste_ it.

The malboro nearest Zell was aflame, hit by a Firaga spell. The kids were frantically blasting the monsters with Fire spells, but they were too inexperienced and weren't causing nearly enough damage. One of them grabbed his arm and pointed at the malboro furthest from the fight. It was trembling violently.

"Oh _shit_! Zell!"

The SeeD looked, and his face fell, just as the malboro unleashed a violent Bad Breath attack, flooding the stream area with poisonous gas. Most of the younger students were knocked unconscious immediately. Some got confused and attacked themselves and each other, but they were also blinded and couldn't see to strike. Nida tried to call on some curative magic, but was silenced and couldn't break the mental block to reach his supply of spells. He'd protected himself against as many status ailments as he possibly could, but it wasn't enough. Half of his defences had been shattered! He'd been silence-proof! How could this have happened?

"Nida!"

He looked up. Zell was staggering left and right, hand over his eyes. Surely Zell would have protected himself against being blinded? Of course he would! But somehow, these malboros were able to overcome the defences the SeeDs had set up.

Nida tried to straighten up, but blinding pain coursed through his body, forcing him back down. Poison? Impossible!

He fell into the stream, his ribcage connecting solidly with the sharp and rocky bed.

"Zell, the gun!" he cried, winded from the fall.

All parties had taken a flare gun with them, just in case. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zell struggling to find it in the carry sack they'd brought along, blinded as he was. He couldn't see the malboro scrabbling its way towards him.

"Zell, behind you, you fool!"

Too late. Zell whirled, but was struck down by a huge tentacle. He fell down the bank, not stopping until he hit the stream, and didn't move again. 

"Zell! Zell! Get up!"

Another Bad Breath attack blasted into the clearing. This time, it overcame his sleep defence. 

Nida blacked out.

***

"Did you hear something?"

Xu looked at Quistis. "No, nothing. Why?"

"Just thought I heard someone yell."

"This forest _has_ become a battle ground, Quistis," Xu said with a smile. Quistis rolled her eyes.

"All right!"

"You seem overly anxious today." Xu caught her friend's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "Why?"

"Because Squall has a habit of being right."

"You've thought of everything for this field trip." She grinned and waved off Squall's cynicism. "Squall will never change. He's naturally moody and suspicious of everything."

Quistis let out a flustered breath. Sweat had beaded her upper lip, and she wiped it away. "Did Laguna say it would be this hot?"

"You read the reply, not me."

They walked on a little further.

"At this rate, I'll never get a new whip," Quistis said bitterly. They'd been wandering, at a slow pace, for an hour now, and hadn't seen a single monster, let alone a malboro.

"Don't worry, we've got all day." Xu smiled and tossed her head back, flicking her hair out. It was damp with sweat. "We all needed a break, I think. The Garden can be like a prison at times."

"I agree. All those training syllabuses and new induction candidates . . . they were getting me down for a while back there."

"You like being an instructor again?"

Quistis smiled fondly. "Zell says I have natural talent for teaching. And I do enjoy it. Besides, with the normal SeeDs' current lack of variety in the workspace . . ."

"Yes, Squall is getting pretty annoyed at that." Xu flashed a grin at her friend. She seemed to gain unnatural pleasure from seeing Squall irritated. "He told me the other day he might start a war to make things more interesting!"

"Squall wouldn't do that," Quistis said, but couldn't suppress her amused chuckle. "He avoids anything that lands him on the bad side of Rinoa, and she despises wars after the last one this planet had."

"They make a cute couple."

Quistis didn't reply to that. The last thing she wanted to talk about was Squall and Rinoa's seemingly 'perfect' relationship when she couldn't even find someone she liked. She was the only person in their little posse who still hadn't found love in some way, shape or form. Even Zell had managed to become more involved, with that librarian girl (Quistis never had found out her name - Zell continued to refer to her as 'my girl'). Selphie had Irvine, Squall had Rinoa, Zell had his girl, and Quistis . . . had no one. True, there were many SeeDs who'd be willing, but she didn't feel attracted to any of them. Before she could stop herself, she sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing."

"So that's a nothing as in 'something', or a nothing as in 'nothing'?"

Quistis pulled a face at Xu. "You know which."

"Yes, I do!"

Xu sniffed suddenly, and grimaced. "Pi-yew! That stinks! I think we've found you a malboro, Quisty."

"About time!" Quistis looked across at where the smell seemed to be coming from. They were near the cliff edge, and far below them was a vast sea of vibrant emerald. They were in only a small segment of the full entirety of Grandidi Forest, which was big enough, but Quistis couldn't even begin to contemplate the real size of the place. 

The edge of the cliff was partly split. She thought it was a crack at first, but as she and Xu approached it, they found that it was a treacherous natural path, leading down to the forest below. Quistis hoped none of the SeeDs-in-training had gone down there. They were under orders to remain strictly in this part of the forest!

Quistis peered down the trail. It was barely walkable, but anyone with some agility would be able to descend if they were very careful. Halfway down, the path widened considerably into a shadowy, overgrown area. The smell seemed to be emanating from there.

"A malboro nest?" Xu breathed, but didn't sound too sure of herself.

"No, malboros don't breed at this time of the year. That's why I deemed it safe to come here. There wouldn't be too many about at the moment for our SeeDlings to handle."

Xu regarded her solemnly. "For once, I think you're mistaken." She pointed directly at the tangled darkness below. "Quistis, look closely."

She did, pulling her glasses out of her front pocket and slipping them on. The grass down there . . . it seemed to be . . . moving? The shadowy growth pulsed sickeningly as she watched. And those discoloured grey ovoids . . . what were they?

It hit her. 

"Malboro eggs," she gasped. "But, but how?"

"I don't know," Xu said, her lips pressed into a thin line. "But they're the wrong colour and out of season. I think we'd better get back and tell Squall."

Quistis nodded tightly. "Let's go!"

***End of Chapter 1***

All characters, bar a few of my own, owned by Squaresoft. 


	2. Chapter 2

  


"I'm surprised you haven't asked Rinoa to go fighting malboros with you yet, Squall," Irvine howled, "I can imagine that being your idea of a hot date!"

All three of them were hysterical, rolling around on the grass and laughing their asses off. 

_Doesn't matter that it's at my expense, I guess,_ Squall thought irritably, looking everywhere except at Selphie, Rinoa or Irvine. _What the hell have I done to deserve so much ridicule? They're supposed to be my friends, for God's sake!_

Irvine told another joke while Rinoa was halfway through a glass of wine. The said liquid was sprayed everywhere, and another laughing session ensued.

_I wonder how often people talk about me? I'm probably not the easiest guy to get on with, but I never asked for this . . ._

Squall sipped at his wine moodily. Should he sit here and be laughed at, or storm off angrily? If he did the latter, they'd probably rip it out of him some more, but it was taking all his willpower not to launch himself at Irvine. He knew the guy meant well . . . maybe he should stop taking everything so seriously. He wouldn't go so far as to laugh along with them, but he'd tolerate it . . . for now.

Selphie leaned back and stretched, yawning widely. "The heat makes you sleepy, doesn't it?" They'd chosen a place near the Ragnarok, on grassy terrain and slap-bang in the path of the sun's intense rays. Squall had already taken off his jacket and gloves, but the heat was nigh on unbearable. Sighing, he laid back on the grass, one hand behind his head and the other fingering his silver Griever necklace thoughtfully.

The heat really did make you sleepy. Within a few minutes of his new position, Squall felt his eyes begin to close, although he could still hear his three friends chattering away amiably. He forced himself to relax, muscle by muscle, working from his neck downwards, until he felt the tension draining out of his body. He was startled when Rinoa closed in on him, snuggling up to his side and pressing her head against his shoulder.

"Hey, guys," Irvine said, and Squall and Rinoa sat up, her arm still snaked around his waist. The sniper was standing, hand-in-hand with Selphie, who was grinning infectiously, her light green eyes positively glowing. "We're, uh, gonna go off to, uh, take care of some _stuff_, okay?"

"_Stuff_, huh?" Rinoa jibed. "So this _stuff_ involves taking an entire bottle of wine - and glasses - for just the two of you, does it?"

"Yeah!" Selphie giggled, and ran off, dragging Irvine by the hand. "Bye! See you later!"

As the two faded into the forest background, Rinoa grinned at Squall, nudged him in the ribs, and inclined her head towards the Ragnarok door.

"Haven't we got some 'stuff' of our own to take care of?" she said slyly, wrapping her arms around his neck. He put his hands on her hips, but wasn't entirely comfortable.

"What about Dr. Kadowaki?"

"She said the heat was too much for her. She's asleep in the cockpit. Come _on_, Squall!" She stood up, releasing him but catching his hand instead and practically dragging him inside.

It was much cooler within the Ragnarok. Rinoa led him from the gangplank to the hangar, and then into a small side room. There she pushed him against a wall, and kissed him.

When she pulled away for breath, Squall hissed: "But what if -"

She put her finger to his lips. "Squall, for once, would you try to act your age?" She crushed her mouth against his, and Squall returned the kiss this time, pushing his body against hers and pulling her as close as possible with his arms. Rinoa had already shrugged out of her long blue coat outside because of the damned heat, and such close contact was bringing Squall to boiling point.

She broke away with a seductive, "Now that's more like it!" and helped pull his shirt up over his head. Before he had a chance to say a word, she was grabbing at his trousers.

She'd just got them loose when the door flew open.

Rinoa shrieked, and Squall hastily caught at his trousers before they fell around his ankles.

Realising what they'd just interrupted, Quistis, Xu and Dr. Kadowaki started stuttering apologies.

"Geez, doesn't _anyone_ respect privacy anymore?!" Squall was yelling, fastening his trousers and reaching for his shirt. Rinoa was staring daggers at Quistis in particular, as though the instructor had contrived to do this deliberately.

"Sorry, Squall," Xu said, flushing bright red. "But we have a slight problem."

_Finally get a chance to let go and . . ._ His mind did a comic double take. _A problem?_

"What problem?" he asked anxiously.

"Well, you see, Xu and I found a malboro nest and -"

"It's not their breeding season!"

"Yeah, well there's one there and its absolutely _heaving_ with eggs. I think we'd better pull everyone out. I specifically arranged the time so that there wouldn't be too many malboros to deal with, but broody malboros can be even more dangerous if their territory's invaded -"

"Well, _shit_, Quistis!" Squall charged out of the room, yanking his shirt down over his head almost painfully. "We've gotta find them all now and bring them back! Wait . . . where's my - oh, thanks, Rinoa." He quickly sheathed his upgraded gunblade in his belt, running his fingers agitatedly through his hair, which Rinoa had messed up with her somewhat violent caresses.

"Yes, I figured that out, but the problem is how, Squall. There are nine groups of kids and SeeDs out there, and they might already have run into a few malboros by now! Squall? Squall, come back here!"

Squall sprinted towards the cockpit, running so fast that he slammed himself into the wall when he had to force himself to stop upon reaching the elevator. He took it up to the cockpit, and found the controls for the siren. He set it off, and listened despairingly to the low-pitched wail the ship emitted. Sure, the kids would be able to hear it, but what if they were right now engaged in a battle they had no hope of winning? Even three experienced SeeDs wouldn't be able to take down a malboro in heat.

He turned and dove back onto the lift, meeting the four women downstairs.

"Dr. Kadowaki, I need you to stay here in case anyone returns. Quistis, Xu, Rinoa . . ." He brandished his gunblade menacingly. "We're going malboro hunting."

Rinoa looked around her, and gulped. "Just us four?"

"Just how bad _is_ a broody malboro?" Xu asked anxiously. The look Squall shot her was not reassuring.

"Make sure you have enough Esunas." Squall strode down the gangplank, receiving a supportive glance from Dr. Kadowaki. "God knows we're going to need them."

"You defeated Ultimecia and you're worried about a little malboro?" Quistis asked wryly, a chiding grin on her naturally pale face.

"Well, malboros are different, and you know it. Best check your status defence." He turned back to Dr. Kadowaki, who was waiting at the base of the gangplank stairway. "If everyone returns, switch off the siren and we'll know to come back."

She nodded. Squall had always found the rotund physician's presence strangely comforting, and smiled.

"You're only happy when things are going wrong, aren't you," Quistis muttered unhappily.

Unable to resist, he grinned at her. "Maybe I just like being right all the time. Okay, let's move out!"

***

Zell woke up.

His head ached and his eyes stung, but at least he could see.

Unfortunately, this did him little good, as he couldn't actually move an inch.

" . . . the hell?" he mumbled, and looked down at his body. A strong, slick, white cocoon was encased around everything below his neck. Zell strained against the thick, glutinous material, but couldn't budge.

Then he realised that the place stank.

Of malboro.

Feeling the first pangs of panic, Zell craned his neck awkwardly. His prone body was lying on the floor, which was kind of springy and steamy. And very green. It was also pretty dark down here, mainly because of the dense forest canopy. There were white cocoons like the one he was trapped in scattered all over the place, filled with other SeeDs and junior classmen, and between them, in various places, were greyish ovoid shapes. It looked like an alien landscape, and he felt like alien lunch, wrapped in its own protective covering for freshness.

His mum was right; his imagination did take over sometimes.

A flash of browny-grey caught his eye. To his right, he could see a cliff face through all the greenery. His heart fell at the sight.

Somehow, he'd been brought down the cliff! By the malboros? But they _always_ killed and ate what they defeated!

A memory tinkered inside Zell's mind, of a book he'd read in Balamb Garden's library once. He'd really just wanted an excuse to be with his girl, but the book had been interesting enough.

_"Wildlife of the Eastern Continent," I think it was called. There was a section on malboros . . . Dammit, I know it was important! Think, Zell, think!_

He drew in a deep breath. 

_Okay, I know I never really cared how monsters lived - just how they could be killed . . . but that's why I should remember it because it's not the sorta thing I usually read . . . Breeding habits! That was it! Something about egg-laying . . . oh, no!_

His heart sank even further, until it reached the depths of his stomach and sent a fierce chill through his body.

_It said . . . broody malboros hunt for food and leave it in the nest, to feed the kids when they hatch!_

Zell wasn't about to be any baby malboro's first meal. But how in hell was he going to get out? He strained against the cocoon, but caught sight of a face he recognised all too well amongst the other captives.

"Nida! Nida, wake up!"

The SeeD's face was far too pale for Zell's liking. If those malboros could overcome status defence, then he was quick to assume that Nida might have been poisoned. Goddamn! He'd had loads of antidotes in that carry sack - as well as the flare gun.

"Hold on, Nida!" Zell wriggled around, trying to move, but the cocoon was actually glued to the floor in some way. He couldn't even roll over!

At the sound of his strenuous efforts, Nida was roused, albeit somewhat groggily. He blinked a few times, his usually bright gaze clouded with weariness.

"Zell?" Nida's voice was tired.

" 'S'up, Nida?"

"Ugh . . . think I cracked a few ribs back there . . . and that damn monster hit me with poison."

"Can you move?"

Nida pushed half-heartedly against his prison. "No, I can't." Zell saw the SeeD's face contort with pain soon after he'd relaxed.

"Look, don't move, all right? You'll only aggravate it if you do."

"Enough said . . ."

Zell plastered his most charming grin on his face. "Relax! Everything's under control!"

"I've heard that before . . ."

"Yeah, 'cause everything's always _been_ under control, man!"

Nida smiled. "Sure it has."

Zell chewed his lip, trying to figure out how to escape. A spell? A lashing of Fire would no doubt burn away the cocoon, but probably char him as well. And with all this greenery about, he couldn't risk it. 

_All right, what did Squall tell me about thinking before doing anything? Okay, first up, what resources do I have?_

He looked around, and spotted something that turned his stomach to liquid.

The black bulk of a hexadragon lay against several upturned trees, cocooned to death. Green things the size of dogs were crawling all over it, _eating_ it.

"Oooohhhh _shit_!" he hissed.

"What?" From his angle, Nida wouldn't be able to see the grotesque answer to the question of where all the hexadragons had got to.

"Uh, nothing. Everything's under -"

"Control, yeah, I know."

They both froze as a great, wet _crack_ resounded somewhere in Zell's vicinity.

"Zell?"

" . . . Yeah?"

"What the hell was that?"

Zell swivelled his head around. One of the ovoids he'd seen before was split open like a mouldy old seedpod. Had it been like that before? He couldn't remember, and suddenly wished he had a photographic memory. 

"What the -"

It _sounded_ like the laugh of some insane scientist, you know the sort - big glasses, white coats, strange hair formations . . . All malboros laughed like that. But this had been a mini-version, from a mini-malboro no doubt. But where?

"Uh, Zell, now's not the time to panic," Nida said calmly, "but there's A BIG GREEN THING CRAWLING ON YOU!"

Zell shrieked, and was assaulted by a gust of vile breath that was almost as bad as the older malboros'. This baby malboro was identical to them - but much smaller.

_Still big, though!_ Zell thrashed around, trying to throw it off him, but it just crawled its way across the cocoon, heading for his torso, his neck, _his goddamn face!_

"Hell, no! _Hell, no!_" Zell screamed, and suddenly his clenched fists burst from the cocoon with a blinding flash of ethereal light, his body following them as they found their mark right on the baby malboro's evil grinning face. It flew through the air, smacked against the cliff wall with a nasty _squelch_, and died as it slid to the floor.

"Phew!" Zell wiped slime off his gloves, and tried to reassemble his hair quiff. " 'If it weren't for limit breaks', eh?"

Nida blinked. "You actually _went_ to that lecture?"

"Well, no, but I got someone to tell me about it afterwards so I didn't fail the exam." Grinning, Zell dragged the lower half of his body out of the cocoon and brushed himself off. "Okay, sit tight, Nida." He called on his supply of magic, and tried to cast Esuna on the poisoned SeeD. The magic just bounced off the cocoon, a pretty display of light, but no antidote for poison. 

"Damn, the stuff must nullify the magic." He tugged at the thick white material, but couldn't get it to split. The stuff was stronger than he'd ever seen! "You'll have to hold on, Nida. I'll be right back with an antidote or something. I promise!"

"Don't take all day about it, will ya?" was Nida's parting shot, as Zell sprinted off to find a way back up the cliff.

***

There had obviously been a struggle. For a start, the grass was flattened. A heavy, soft leather coat was neatly folded by a splintered tree, along with a dark, old-fashioned cowboy hat. A wine bottle was lying smashed on the ground. Several of the glass shards were dripping with a dark substance. Since the wine had been white, they could only assume that it was blood. A vile stench floated about the area.

_Oh . . . no . . ._

"But . . . but where are they?" Rinoa asked softly, her eyes wide and her heart heavy. "Where are Selphie and Irvine?"

She looked across at Squall, whose brow was furrowed with anxiety, the scar across his nose and forehead creasing slightly. He'd scooped up his gloves but not his jacket, mentioning something about sweaty palms, and now one of his covered hands was clenched tightly around the handle of his upgraded gunblade.

"I don't know."

"If a . . . malboro had attacked them, would they definitely be . . ."

Quistis' unfinished question just sort of hung in the stagnant air.

"Irvine would never leave _those_ behind," Xu said, chewing her lip and pointing at the pile of clothes resting at the base of the tree. "They must've been attacked!"

"Look, we don't know what happened," Squall interrupted irritably, in his usual careless manner. "We'll have to move on. Hopefully they got away. Perhaps they killed it and are on their way back to the Ragnarok as we speak."

"You don't sound very reassuring," Quistis grumbled.

"I don't mean to. Hope is usually a waste of time."

She flashed an angry look at him. "When we were up against Edea, then Adel, and then Ultimecia, hope was all we had to get us through!"

"We don't have time for a debate," Rinoa said, flustered. Quistis and Squall would argue all day if given half a chance. She stooped by the tree, collecting Irvine's coat and hat, the latter of which she placed on her own head. "Irvine will want me to save these for him."

"Rinoa, it's not worth carrying those around," Squall said, starting to lose his patience. "We don't even know if they -"

"Oh, don't be so callous!" she spat at him. "Come on, let's keep moving!" Tilting the hat the way Irvine often did to charm the ladies, Rinoa stormed off into the dense foliage.

"Do you think we should approach the nest?" Xu asked.

"Just us four?" Squall half-laughed at that notion. "We'd never make it out alive."

"This coming from the guy who defeated the ultimate sorceress . . ."

"Look," Rinoa snapped, whirling around to face her friends. "Just because Squall defeated Ultimecia, it doesn't mean he's invincible. Besides, he hardly did it on his own. All six of us played our part."

_If only they knew the truth about what happened that day . . . _Rinoa sighed. _People just assume we killed Ultimecia and left. They don't realise how hard it was . . . first in the castle, fighting off her 'pets', finally reaching her, eventually killing her . . . and then getting lost as time was distorted. None of them know. Not one of them._

"Let's at least head for the cliff edge, so you can get a look at the nest," Quistis suggested calmly. "There's always a chance that the malboros took Selphie and Irvine down there. It's not far from here."

"But, why would they?" Squall leaned back against a tree, taking a breather. "Malboros always eat what they defeat."

"If that's so, then what do they feed their young?"

Fear rose from the depths of Rinoa's stomach, flooding her body with cold. Xu's theory made frightening sense. "That's assuming Irvine and Selphie didn't get away," she said, though her sentence was more of a question, to which no one offered her an answer.

They turned left sharply from where they were, and walked diagonally. Though they reached the cliff edge much faster than Xu and Quistis had, Rinoa could see that the 'path' was still a long way off, a dark smear on the plain brown horizon. She glanced down into the heavy jungle below, and gulped.

"Come on then. We've got a long way to go and we have to get there fast." Squall put action to his words, and Rinoa had to run to keep up with his long, quick strides. Despite vigorous training regimes, she still wasn't quite on the same level as her fellow SeeD friends, and was panting by the time the crack in the cliff was in the near distance.

"I must be rusty," she breathed, and grinned.

"We haven't done any travelling like this in a long while," Squall agreed, nodding, and then froze suddenly, holding out his hand for everyone to do the same.

Rinoa tried to hold her breath, but her oxygen debt was already too high and the only sound in the forest was her harsh breathing. Her eyes widened.

Her breathing was the _only_ sound in a forest as still as a graveyard. No birds, no wind, not even any of those huge, annoying bugs. The trees seemed to be waiting for something, their tense anticipation palpable in the humid air.Squall's eyes were narrowed in an expression he wore all too often - suspicion. His lips parted, and he started to say something.

"We -"

Then the ground exploded.

Rinoa was showered with dirt and rock, coughing and spluttering wildly. Wiping the dust from her eyes, she looked up to see an absolutely _huge_ malboro, tentacles writhing to pull itself out of the ground it had been hiding in. 

_Squall!_

The SeeD was prone on his back, propped up on his elbows and staring at the malboro with wide blue eyes. But they contained no trace of fear, just total alertness, a calculating quality, as if he were thinking of a way to defeat the monster even now.

_Isn't he ever scared?_

The malboro had burst up from where Squall had been standing, so he'd been hit with the worst of the blast. Quistis and Xu had been pretty close, and were on their hands and knees, still dazed from the attack. As the creature crawled out of its hole, Rinoa saw the dark tunnel in the rock that it had been waiting in. Perhaps the monsters had a whole network of tunnels running through the cliff? It would explain how they dragged their prey down to the nest, if they did so at all.

A foul stench swept over her, making her nauseous. She clambered to her feet, feeling less than graceful, as the smell made her head spin. Nevertheless, she flexed her arm, pulling back the catch on her Shooting Star and preparing to fire.

Ear-bursting, inhuman, hysterical laughter told her that more malboros were coming from the outskirts of the forest itself. Squall was on his feet, his Lion Heart drawn.

_We could do with Ifrit . . . but Selphie has him!_ Rinoa looked around at her companions. Xu didn't tend to use Guardian Forces very much, but Quistis did. Which one did she have?

The instructor mouthed "Siren!" at her, and Rinoa felt her confidence slip a little. Her Carbuncle wouldn't be any good against a malboro's Bad Breath attack. Squall's favourite was Shiva . . . Ice! Malboros were weak against Ice!

She started to yell over at him, but he was already closing his eyes and falling into a defensive stance. Rinoa bit her lip, wondering if Squall realised his back was to the cliff edge, but he was too busy concentrating. She, Quistis and Xu started hitting the thing with Blizzaga and Firaga spells. It countered by spitting acid at them. Rinoa dodged a particularly nasty blob of the stuff. It met with the rocky ground and instantly started to sear it away. She thought of the tunnels below the surface, and gasped.

As the other malboros writhed their way onto the cliff edge, she saw the ground near Squall begin to spider web. The SeeD was too busy to notice, and the first malboro was blocking her way to him. Nevertheless, she took a step forward - and the floor at her feet caved in. She shrieked, just managing to catch herself. Her rear hit the ground painfully, and she had to yank her leg out of the hole she'd just created.

_Too much weight! We've got to get off this cliff!_

Suddenly Squall cried out in surprise, and Rinoa's panicked gaze shot across to him instantly. The SeeD had been knocked out of his trance by the shattering of the ground at his feet. He was back on the floor, and dazed by his abrupt distraction from summoning.

"Squall, get out of there!"

There was a squealing from behind her - Quistis and Xu had taken down one of the malboros, which shrivelled up into an ashy black pile. The other two were still on the rampage, not including the one advancing on Squall, and he was having trouble keeping his balance, his eyes flitting back and forth between the not-so-distant edge of the cliff and the laughing malboro blocking his path.

And then everything was interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

***

Irvine burst from the undergrowth, ignoring Selphie's anxious cries, and first targeted the malboro closing in on Squall. The SeeD was far too close to the edge for his liking.

_Damned things . . ._

He hadn't been able to believe Selphie when she'd yelped and dropped the wine bottle in her surprise. In tending her hand, he'd been unable to hear the sound of strange, whispering foliage moving in their direction. Only when he'd seen the overly big, mutated grey malboro had he credited Selphie's hearing. The two had barely made it away with their lives, let alone their weapons, and with Selphie unable to hold her nunchaku with her gashed hand . . . they'd had little choice but to run.

His Exeter was already fully loaded. He held the gun in one hand, pulling the trigger. The heavy rounds thudded into the back of the malboro's head. It turned, laughing maniacally. Irvine continued to pump the rounds into the creature, using his left hand to reload rapidly. The monster was spewing up black blood, the acidic stuff making noxious fumes as it scorched the ground. Fortunately, Irvine was downwind, running sideways as he blasted at the malboro. He fumbled inside his trouser pocket for more ammo, his fast-approaching limit break making his blood burn in his veins. Finding the small capsules he wanted, he jammed two pulse shells into the weapon, using both hands this time to support the gun against the recoil he knew he was going to get.

Irvine pulled the trigger, and the first of the pulse ammo sucked in energy before exploding from the barrel of his gun, throwing him backwards. It did the trick, though. The malboro was practically blown in half, its grinning face pouring acidic blood as it slumped heavily to the ground.

But its weight was too much for the unstable cliff edge, which caved in, taking a startled Squall with it.

Between Rinoa's frantic screaming and his own panic, Irvine thought his feet didn't touch the ground as he dove forward and flung his hand out over the edge, the wind knocked from him as his body thudded to the floor.

Fortunately, Squall's gloved hand found his and Irvine strained against gravity to keep hold of his friend. Squall wasn't heavy, but the elements were apparently against them, and Irvine had his free hand gripping the remainder of the cliff edge.

Squall was looking down, surprisingly calm for a man hanging on for dear life.

"You realise I've gotta go down there now, don't you? I dropped my gunblade, and I'm _not_ leaving it for the malboros to salivate all over."

Irvine almost laughed. "Trust you to worry about your gunblade at a time like this. When I drag you up here, we can go get it together but I'm _not_ letting you fall!"

A cry of sheer desperation rattled around the cliff top.

Squall lifted his head and cocked it to one side. "What the hell's that?"

Irvine threw him a crooked grin. "That's Rinoa, using her limit break to roast all those malboros up there."

"Which one?"

"Angel Wing."

Squall smiled. "I thought as much. Tell her . . ."

"Oh no you don't. You can tell her yourself later on." Irvine tried to get a better grip on the rock to pull himself and Squall up, but the stuff just crumbled away beneath his fingertips. Trying not to look concerned, he changed the subject.

"She saved my hat. I'm glad."

Squall raised an eyebrow at the SeeD. "Irvine, you're talking to Mr. Stoic, here. Don't bother changing the subject, I do it often enough to know when some else is doing it."

_Ah, dammit . . . what do I do if he falls? It'll be my fault . . ._

"Ah, Squall, I'm sorry, you know?"

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be a dumbass."

"No, really, I never mean any of it, I swear!"

"If you did, do you think you'd still be here today?"

Irvine's grin at that tart reply faded as he felt Squall's fingers begin to slip out of the glove he was holding so tightly.

"Don't you dare! _Shit_, Squall, don't you dare! Rinoa will _flay_ my ass!"

Squall didn't get the chance to reply. His hand slipped out of the glove, and the SeeD plummeted out of sight.

"Squall! SQUALL!!"

The last of the malboros was going up in a heap of smoke just as Irvine dejectedly staggered away from the cliff edge, feeling slightly unreal. Had that really just happened? Selphie was usually the culprit where falling down cliffs was concerned. Or Rinoa.

_Oh, geez, Rinoa!_

Recovering from her exhaustive limit break session, Rinoa nevertheless wasted any time in storming up to Irvine. She lunged at him, crying out angrily and thumping his chest with her fists.

"You bastard! You let him go, you let him go! How could you?"

Eventually she collapsed against him, sobbing uncontrollably. Irvine dropped his arms around her, feeling sick to the stomach but determined to believe that Squall was okay.

"Chill, Rinoa," he said, putting on his most charming grin for her. "Squall has a habit of landing on his feet."

* * *

_Why do I always seem to land on my ass?_

Squall groaned, holding his head in his hands. He was slumped at the base of the cliff. Unbelievably, he was still alive. Miraculously, he was still conscious.

_Don't know whether either of those are a godsend or punishment . . . How the hell did I manage to survive this time?_ He looked up, and sighed. _Oh, I remember. I hit a tree before I hit the ground. Bloody hell, this day gets worse every second!_

Wincing, Squall tested the boundaries of his movement, flexing his neck and his arms first. He'd scraped his back against the rock in the last few seconds of his dizzying fall, and was glad he hadn't been wearing his favourite jacket.

_Skin heals - leather doesn't._

Squall was surprised that a few scratches were the extent of his injuries after such a long fall. Did he bounce or something?

_Get chased by a giant mechanical spider . . . and survive . . . get speared with an icicle . . . and survive . . . get electrocuted several dozen times . . . and survive . . . go up against the most powerful sorceress in the past, present and future . . . and survive . . . fall down a cliff . . ._

His thoughts wandered as he placed his hands either side of him and pushed. Surprisingly, he lifted from the floor without falling apart at the seams. Using the cliff face to support him, he clambered to his feet. Sharp pain shot up from his right ankle, and Squall fell, landing on his front, arms and legs sprawled most ungraciously. 

_ A sprained ankle?_ He tried to tell himself that it was better than a broken leg, but the obsessive part of his mind nagged at him. _Damn . . . never twisted an ankle or wrist in my life. A Cure spell won't help an injury like that . . . It'll take ages to heal . . . really mess up my fitness regime . . ._

Squall rolled onto his back, pulling damp leaves from his cheek, trying to catch his breath after that painful reminder of his mortality. 

"Goddamn . . ." he breathed, and stood up again, albeit rather shakily, keeping as much pressure as he could on his healthy leg. He looked up, and saw the edge of the cliff he had fallen from.

_Holy . . ._

All of a sudden, the shock of how far he'd plummeted hit him like a brick wall. Squall fell back against the wall, his breathing sharp and his stomach churning. For a moment, he thought he might throw up. Swallowing, he dropped his head back against the cliff face, closing his eyes and trying to consciously slow down his racing heart.

The placed he'd fallen from was tiny, a mere speck on the vertical horizon. 

"Geez . . . why does this stuff always happen to me?"

Squall waited it out, the light-headed feeling and the utter shock to his system eventually leaking out of him. Sighing, he grabbed a nearby fallen branch to help support his weight, and limped off into the undergrowth to find his gunblade.

***End of Chapter 2***

All characters, bar a few of my own, owned by Squaresoft. 


	3. Chapter 3

  
  


_What the . . ._

Zell blinked, stared, and blinked again. When the scene didn't change, he stealthily approached the object that had attracted his attention.

The faintly glowing, crystalline blue blade of an upgraded Lion Heart gunblade was stuck in the ground. Zell closed his hand around its pistol handle thoughtfully.

What was Squall's gunblade doing all the way down here?

_Maybe it's not Squall's . . ._ He chewed his lip, letting his mind work out how many of these rare upgrades there were in the world. Even more exceptional was Squall's trademark Griever chain, hanging from the butt of the gunblade. It had to be Squall's!

_But if this is Squall's gunblade, then where the hell is Squall?_

Zell looked around him, searching for signs of a struggle. Had Squall been taken by a malboro or three, and left his weapon behind? Maybe the Garden's unofficial headmaster was trapped in one of those cocoons back at the nest. But what had Squall been doing down here in the first place?

Nodding to himself affirmatively, Zell clutched the handle of the gunblade and yanked it with some difficulty out of the spongy ground. The weight of the weapon was surprising, and he staggered for a moment with it before swinging it up onto his shoulders, letting them carry the burden.

_Geez, Squall's only a little guy . . . how does he use this big thing so effortlessly?_

Squall might not be around, but his gunblade was sharp enough to slice through the material of those cocoons. Zell could free Nida, use Esuna on him, and then they could both set about helping everyone else out. Satisfied with that plan, Zell started to turn back towards the nest, but stopped when he heard a voice.

"Oh, sh -" 

A wild rustling of leaves and branches followed that unfinished curse, and, clutching the gunblade fiercely, Zell approached the knot of greenery that was shaking so violently. His jaw dropped when a dirty, dishevelled Squall, minus jacket and one glove, crawled out of the bushes he'd apparently stumbled into. He was so used to seeing his friend pristine and immaculate that it took him a while to accept that this was Squall Leonhart.

"Uh, Squall? Is that you?"

Squall glanced up, startled, but relaxed when he saw who it was. He started to emerge from the bush but his left boot was caught on a vine and he only succeeded in falling flat on his face.

"Here, Squall, let me give you a hand!" Zell stuck the gunblade back in the ground and held out a hand for the SeeD to take. In typical Squall-style, he completely ignored it, scrambled to his feet and leaned against a tree, panting for breath. Being used to such discourtesy, Zell simply stepped back and waited for his friend to pull himself together. The guy looked rough, his usually perfect hair ruffled, with little twigs stuck in it. The shirt he wore under his jacket was both dirty and slightly bloody, especially at his back. He seemed to be favouring one leg.

"Had a bad day?" he grinned. Squall awarded him an icy glare.

"Gee, how'd you guess?" He slumped to the base of the tree and rested his arms on his knees, his breathing slowing down noticeably. Blinking, he glanced up at Zell. "How'd you end up down here?"

"Our group got ambushed by about a hundred malboros!"

Squall quirked an eyebrow. "A hundred, huh?"

"Yeah! And I got knocked out, and I came to down here, wrapped up in this cocoon thing inside the malboro nest, and then all these little green things were trying to eat my face -"

"Your face?"

" -And I wasn't about to let that happen, so I kicked all their asses, and then I realised Nida was in trouble -"

"Nida?"

"Oh, you know, that guy you never remember? Anyway, he got poisoned 'cause the malboros somehow can break past any status defence you happen to have, so I tried Esuna on him but the cocoon stuff just nullified the magic, and then I left him there looking for an antidote or something to break open the cocoon with, and then I found your gunblade and then I found you!"

"Very . . . enlightening."

"What about you? I thought you were taking a break!"

"Oh, I fell down the cliff . . ."

"Oh, you . . . fell . . . down the cliff?"

"Yeah. Quistis came back and told us that the malboros were breeding for some reason. We went looking for everyone, but got cornered on the cliff. I fell down there."

"You hurt bad?"

"No." Nevertheless, Squall winced as he struggled to stand upright on one leg. "I'm fine."

"Sure you are. Come back to the nest with me? I have to free Nida."

"Who?"

"Ack!" Zell threw up his hands. "Never mind! Just come!"

"Uh . . . I would . . . only . . ."

"Only what?"

"Only . . . I can't walk. I twisted an ankle when I hit a tree on the way down, I think."

"A tree?!"

"Yeah."

Zell frowned. "Hmmmm . . . Well, I guess I'll have to help ya!"

Squall rolled his eyes, but snatched up the gunblade Zell offered him and limped off without the SeeD's aid.

"Uh, Squall? You're going the wrong way."

"Oh? Well . . . I was just testing that you knew the right way."

"Really? Good idea!" 

***

Blood was really quite fascinating. Selphie watched it running in rivulets from her hand, the sticky, viscous fluid sliding down her wrist, welling up around her watch, breaking that barrier and then painting her arm a deep crimson. She was mesmerized by its speed, its deeply rich colour . . .

"Hold it up, Selphie!" Quistis startled her by saying.

Selphie obeyed, her green eyes wide with captivation as the tributaries of gleaming vermilion increased in speed.

She felt Irvine's warm hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry about your glove," Selphie said distantly. She glanced apologetically at him, and then at his fingerless accessory lying on the floor. He'd put it on her hand when she'd cut it, to try and stop the bleeding, but the gash was bad and now it was all bloodstained.

"What?" Irvine sounded gobsmacked. "Oh, Sefie, hon, don't worry about the damned glove!"

"But they're your favourite gloves . . ."

"I can buy new gloves! I can't buy a new Selphie!"

"Okay, Selphie, let's see it," Dr. Kadowaki said warmly, carrying a small bag into the passenger room of the Ragnarok. She took her hand carefully, studying the wound with calculating eyes.

_Dr. Kadowaki's been the Garden's physician even longer than Cid had been headmaster . . . she must have seen a lot in her time . . ._

"You said you were only carrying Cures, Irvine?"

"Yeah . . . well, we didn't plan to battle and I thought that'd be enough -"

Dr. Kadowaki tutted. "Always expect things to go wrong."

"That's Squall's job -"

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Rinoa released another wretched sob. Selphie looked across at her friend dispassionately, feeling light-headed and strangely detached from her body. She wasn't used to seeing Rinoa cry though . . . and felt as if she should be worried about something too, but she couldn't remember what, exactly.

Dr. Kadowaki closed her eyes and waved her hand over Selphie's. Mercifully cold light played over the lips of the messy wound, and the blood that had run so freely before finally stopped flowing. It didn't close completely, though, so Dr. Kadowaki pulled more conventional medicinal items from her bag and began to dress it. The pain was suddenly back with Selphie, and she winced.

"So five of the nine groups are back here safely," Quistis was saying, wringing her hands together. "Four are still missing, we don't know where Zell, Nida or . . . you know . . . are, or even if they're still . . . you know . . . What are we going to do?"

"I have a feeling we'll find them all down in the nest," Irvine said ominously, somewhere behind her now. Selphie tried to crane her head around to look at her companions but Dr. Kadowaki berated her for moving around. "We can look for Squall while we're down there, too."

A heavy silence filled the room. 

_Squall's fine. He always is! Nothing ever keeps him down for long . . ._

But suddenly Selphie wasn't so sure of herself. Now that she could remember the scene coherently, she realised just how far Squall had fallen. She let out a muted gasp.

"Sorry, Selphie, I'm nearly done."

"No, it's not that! I just . . . it's Squ -"

"Shhhh!" The physician shook her head, and then inclined it towards Rinoa, who was slumped in one of the passenger seats, her eyes wide and her face tear-streaked. "I know. But he should be okay . . . I hope." She tightened the bandages on Selphie's hand once more and then patted it softly. "There you go. But take it easy, okay? No malboro fighting today!"

"I can't even hold my Strange Vision like this anyway," Selphie moaned, and started to stand up. Dizziness overcame her and she slumped back into the seat.

Dr. Kadowaki's stare was reprimanding. "Just stay there for a minute! You lost a lot of blood." She handed her a glass of water, which Selphie downed in one mouthful. Grinning, the doctor placed a jug at her feet and left her to it.

Pursing her lips, Selphie flexed her fingers, wincing as the movement pulled at her wound. She turned in her chair, pouring herself another drink as she spotted Irvine, Quistis and Xu in low conversation.

"The five groups who have returned said they couldn't find a single monster," Xu said, bewildered. "I think the malboros have been feeding them all to their young."

"Then we'll have to go down to the nest to find our missing students," Quistis groaned. "But it shouldn't be so bad this time round. We'll gather together all the other SeeDs and take them with us."

"I wanna come!" Selphie cried out, waving her uninjured hand in the air. Irvine fixed her with a pleading look.

"No, Selphie, you stay here and -"

"No! I'm coming and you can't stop me!" Selphie grabbed the water jug awkwardly and drank straight from the spout, swallowing great mouthfuls of the cool liquid. When she'd finished, she dumped it on the floor and stood up, wiping her lips dry. The dizziness was still there, but it wasn't half as bad as before, and she sauntered over to the others.

"You can count me in," Rinoa said stiffly, approaching from behind Selphie, her eyes narrowed with determination.

Quistis bit her lip. "Maybe it would be better if you -"

"No. I'm coming and we're going to find Squall."

No one dared question her as the implications of her tone of voice set in. Selphie stared at her, feeling all her hope cascade out of her body like a waterfall.

_What if Squall didn't make it this time? Rinoa will be devastated . . . _I'd_, be devastated! Oh, come on Squall, you have to be alive!_

"Fine," Quistis acknowledged, breaking the awkward silence. "Okay, let's get those SeeDs organised. We've got a lot of ground to cover and we're running out of time."

"Wait," Selphie said abruptly, standing up and grinning. "I've got a better idea."

***

"What the -"

Nida's eyes snapped open . . . again. He kept drifting off into a restless sleep, but every little sound jangled his nerves like electricity, instantly waking him. He looked frantically around, stretching the limits of his vision, his entire body straining for the cause of the noise.

_Nothing . . . again. I could've sworn that this time -_

He relaxed, and felt the poison jolt through him once more. Groaning, he strained his ears, almost certain that he'd heard something important. The nest seemed darker, somehow, more ominous than it had been before. Exactly how late was it? He had no idea how long he'd been lying there, or how long he'd been unconscious for prior to that. 

Thankfully, the thick forest canopy was still pierced with rays of sunlight, but Nida had no idea as to whether they'd last much longer. It had to be late afternoon . . . and still no one had come for them. A few of the other captured SeeDs and junior classmen had woken up, but they couldn't do anything from their end, and low conversations hadn't offered much in the way of escape plans. They wouldn't be able to break out by themselves - it had to be a rescue operation. 

_Maybe there's no one left to rescue us._ Nida's sudden thought was not reassuring, but entirely possible. _If the malboros attacked the Ragnarok . . . no one would be expecting it. But then where's Zell?_

Nida wished he had the energy for his own limit break, but the poison prevented him from thinking straight.

"Ah, sh -"

The voice came from somewhere behind him. He hoped malboros couldn't talk, because the only other alternative was a rescue party. If it was one big enough to save them all, it certainly wasn't making much noise.

"Look, just let me help you!" Nida recognised that one as Zell, but the second voice was still too quiet to make out.

"No."

"But I -"

"Shut up."

"I swear, sometimes you -"

"Shut up."

"You let us help you in D-district."

"I didn't have a choice. I was unconscious."

"Yeah, like that made a difference! If you hadn't been, would you have refused then?"

A hesitant pause, and then a sharp, "Shut up." Someone gasped. The sound was followed by a soft thud. "Ah, hell, look what you made me do!"

"It's the spongy ground, Squall."

_Squall!_ Nida bit down hard on his lip, crushing his eyelids together. _Oh no, not him! I can't be rescued by him! Months and months of trying to impress him, and he finally notices me like this?_

"Damn . . . all right, where do we start?" 

"Wait, let me find Nida. Give me your gunblade."

" . . . No."

"Why?"

"Because it's _my_ gunblade."

"Sheesh! Okay, already. There! Follow me!"

Nida relaxed his facial muscles and pretended to be unconscious. _Of all the would-be rescuers in the forest, Zell had to find him! Goddamn, this day gets worse . . . I can't believe I've gotta be pulled out of this cocoon by the guy I try the most to impress!_

He was surprised to hear Squall's slightly ragged breathing.

"Nida?"

Two fingers were pressed against his neck. Nida couldn't tell whether they were Zell's or Squall's but it was the former who had called his name.

"He's okay. Squall, just cut through that stuff . . . there, I think. And please remember that there's a living person inside it who would like to stay that way, 'kay?"

"Whatever."

A tearing sound, and movement across his back. Nida slowly opened his eyes, as if coming to, and watched Zell's face swim into focus.

"Hey, man, you okay?"

"Been better," was all he could croak up, not through pain or discomfort but sheer embarrassment.

"I'm done."

The weight of the cocoon was off his back, and Zell had grabbed his shoulders. Nida was lifted to a kneeling position, free of his prison, and crawled out onto the spongy ground, wincing as the poison once again shot through him. Sighing, he called on Esuna. The silence spell had long since worn off, but he was as tired as hell. The magic wouldn't be as strong with the caster in such a condition, but it should still work.

Humming light draped over him, sparkling and cool, and Nida actually felt the poison being cleansed from his system, the magic running through his veins and soothing them. He finished up with a Cura spell, and sat up, feeling refreshed.

"Better?" Zell asked with a grin. Nida nodded, and stood up, dusting himself off, ignoring the dull ache of his ribs. Very slowly, he turned to look at Squall.

"Well, what now?" Shamefully, his voice cracked on the last word. Luckily for Nida, no one seemed to have noticed.

"We have to free everyone and wake everyone up, I guess." Zell shrugged, one of his incredibly expressive gestures.

"I have a question," Squall interrupted, shifting his weight irritably. "Where are all the adult malboros? This is supposed to be a nest, right?"

Zell nodded, glancing hopefully at Nida.

"I haven't seen any adults down here," the SeeD said grimly, shaking his head. Squall folded his arms, sitting down on a nearby rotted tree stump.

"That doesn't sound right to me," he said. "What do we know about malboro breeding habits?"

"Not much. At least, not enough to make a difference," Zell said sheepishly. "Let's just make the most of it by getting everyone out!"

Squall frowned, casting his gaze over the entirety of the nest. His lips moved slightly as he counted. "Twenty-eight cocoons. One sharp object." He sighed. "Okay. I'll open the cocoons. You and . . . uh . . . Nida can heal 'em up when you get 'em out. Okay?"

Zell and Nida nodded.

_I guess it'd be too much for him to remember me properly . . . even Zell forgets I'm here half the time._

Nida averted his gaze from Squall as he limped off to the next cocoon, using his gunblade to support his weight. It was strange to see the well respected and, apparently against his wishes, well liked, SeeD physically impaired in any way. 

"I found the tunnel they used to drag us down here," Zell said conversationally.

"Oh? Did you follow it back up?"

"No. It was too dark in there, and it smelled nasty."

"Zell! Then how did you -"

Another dull, wet crack. Both SeeDs looked over at the offending malboro egg, watching the newborn mal-baby watch them. Irritably, Zell darted forward and grabbed its tendril-hair. Then he pulled his arm back and prepared to slam the thing against the nearest tree.

Nida was aware that a malboro's shriek sounded like spine-tingling laughter. But this one released a low-pitched, pitiful drone, which reverberated around the nest. Eyes widening, Zell threw it on the ground and stamped on it, cursing wildly.

"Zell? What did it just do?"

"What's going on?" Squall yelled from the other side of the nest.

Nida looked at Zell, each of them pinning the other with a 'uh-oh' expression.

"Well?"

Somehow it was still alive, and it moaned again. Zell leapt on it.

"Goddamn, hurry up and die!"

Nida glanced back at Squall, who was staring intently into the trees, his gunblade now held in both hands. He had a nasty feeling that something bad was going to happen.

"There, little bastard!" Zell was saying, finishing up on the little malboro.

"Zell, shut up for a second." Nida felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise, a sure sign that _something_ was coming. From the way Squall was slowly backing away from the trees suggested that he knew it, too. Instinctively, Nida reached for his sword, which, frustratingly, wasn't there.

All three SeeDs nearly jumped out of their skins as a blood curdling, shrieking laughter tore through the nest. It was followed by hundreds of similar sounds, echoing around the forest and coming from all directions.

Squall turned and scrambled as fast as he could back to the two SeeDs, almost tripping over himself in his haste. Nida was weaponless, and couldn't risk a Fire- or Ice-type spell in such a confined area with thirty of his fellow students' lives at risk on top of that. Gritting his teeth, he wondered whether it would be better for the three of them to flee the area and return when that baby malboro's big brothers had left again.

And then they appeared. Huge, greyish malboros stormed into the nest from the dense foliage, shrieking and howling, tentacles quivering and snapping trees in half like they were twigs. All of them were drooling acid, which was dropping dangerously close to some of the cocoons.

Barely suppressing a whimper, Nida turned to Squall.

"Well," he breathed. "What now?"

***

Squall didn't know. There were far too many malboros for them to deal with. He couldn't summon Shiva. Her fierce Diamond Dust attack would freeze the forest floor for hundreds of metres, and that would take the imprisoned SeeDs with it. He and Zell were also the only two SeeDs with weapons. Magic was obviously a complete no-go.

"This . . . looks bad," Zell muttered, fists clenched despite the fact they would probably make little difference to the outcome of this fight.

Squall quickly counted the approaching malboros - fifteen already, and more coming through the trees behind them. But, perhaps . . .

"I have an idea," he said slowly. "But if it's going to work, fate's going to have to be on my side."

"It usually is," Zell snorted.

"Really? I haven't noticed it all that much today."

The malboros were closing in.

_Come on, come on, any closer and we're done for! _Squall was waiting for that familiar burning feeling in his veins, the sensation of someone setting his blood alight with fury, but it just wasn't there.

"Squall, that idea of yours?" Zell prompted pointedly.

"Uh . . ."

The closest malboro was now only eight metres away.

_If it doesn't come now, it won't come at -_

And then it came, fire streaking through his body, his LionHeart limit break brought on by the proximity of a great risk to his life. Squall raised his gunblade, all pain dissipating, and charged at the nearest malboro. One swipe nearly severed it in two, but he was moving so fast that the battle scene was a blur of colour and heat and sound. Immediately after felling the first enemy, he was beside the next, slashing it to death with his Lion Heart, moving with incredible speed to the others, cutting them all down into pulsating, grey-green heaps that smoked with dark acid. As wildly as he'd started, Squall finished, finding no further opponents to defeat.

The nest was now a violent mess of malboro corpses, all of them leaking acidic blood. A few of the cocoons were smoking as well, but Nida and Zell were taking care of them already. Panting after that last-ditch effort, Squall relaxed his body. Unfortunately, this meant putting pressure on his twisted ankle, which gave way beneath him and sent Squall falling back against one of the cocoons with a pained cry.

"Nice one, Squall!" Zell was grinning, waving a hand at him. Nida looked awed, and Squall realised just how few had seen his most powerful limit break.

_It was almost the last time I ever tried to use it,_ he thought grimly. _But at least that's over. I doubt any malboros will come near the nest now with all the dead ones all over the place. They're intelligent creatures . . ._

"There's a lot about malboros we don't know," Zell said in a relaxed tone of voice. "It's funny though . . ."

Squall had leaned his head back against the cocoon, closing his eyes. "What's funny?"

"There wasn't a single female malboro among all those that just attacked us."

"How would you know?"

"Oh, I, uh . . . read a book once, yeah? Female malboros have little speckle things 'round their mouths. Not easy to see but I looked for 'em and they were all definitely male."

Squall opened his eyes, blinking them thoughtfully. 

"In fact, all the malboros I've seen today have been male. Not one female. Kinda makes you wonder where all the eggs came from, huh?"

A deadly silence followed that last remark. Squall swallowed.

"Are you sure you didn't get it the wrong way around? Male malboros don't protect their young like that . . . it's a female's job . . ."

Nida spoke up for the first time, in very hushed tones. "Maybe they weren't protecting the eggs . . ."

Squall sat bolt upright. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if males don't protect eggs or their young, why would they rush to the nest, and in such great numbers? There'd have to be something here worth protecting . . ."

A low rumble made the ground Squall was sitting on tremble, only slightly at first but gradually increasing in intensity. Eyes wide, he sat up.

"Now what?!" Zell exclaimed.

For the second time that day, the ground burst open beneath Squall. An absolutely massive green-grey tentacle shot out of the spongy floor, accompanied by hysterical laughter. Squall flew into the air, tossed up by the impact. He landed somewhere in the vicinity of Zell and Nida, dazed by the blow, but ignored their attempts to help and turned to look at where he'd been sitting.

_What the . . ._

Something was rising out of the ground there. Half of the cocoons were hanging on for dear life, suspended by the vines and ground they'd been glued to, their occupants now wide-awake and yelling frantically for help. Tentacles had filled the air, and were snaking across the nest towards the three SeeDs. Squall was already on his feet and running, despite his limp, grabbing Zell's shirt and hoping Zell had caught Nida's.

"Come on! We've got to -"

Something stole his feet out from underneath him. It was cold and wet and slimy and was gripping his bad ankle like there was no tomorrow. Which there wouldn't be, at least for Squall and Zell and Nida, unless they did something fast.

Dropping the gunblade, Squall hit the ground, catching himself on his elbows. Zell had his hand but was also yanked to the floor by the sheer physical strength of the thing dragging Squall back to the hole. He caught a stray vine, straining to keep hold of it, and glanced frantically across at Zell and Nida.

But the two were frozen solid, eyes wide with awed fear, and staring straight at the hole in the ground behind him. Squall craned his neck, and stole a look at the thing pulling him to a nasty death.

"Oh . . . my . . . God . . ."

***

Zell had thought the other malboros were big. They definitely were, compared to the ones he was used to fighting. 

But the one protruding from the floor was tall enough to pierce the forest canopy. It had thousands of writhing tendrils coming out of its body, most of them driving straight towards the stunned SeeDs. It was female.

It also had a grinning, teeth-filled mouth the size of Zell's bedroom.

_Wow . . . guess that's where all the malboro eggs have been coming from. That kid I killed wasn't squealing for help, it was yelling to its relatives to come protect its mom!_

"Whoa!" Zell ducked as a tentacle whizzed past where his head had been. Squall was still clutching the vine, his face contorted with the effort of keeping it that way. The tendril trying to make him let go was quivering with the exertion.

_What could have mutated the malboros this way? The females were never this much bigger than the males . . . Well, at least they weren't when the sorceresses were still around._

It wasn't common knowledge that Rinoa was the current sorceress. But she couldn't control her powers, and didn't want to. The previous sorceresses had all been evil, save for Edea, or at least not directly, and they had proven to hold a certain influence over the monsters of the world. Now that a good person was finally the next generation of sorceress, would the monsters act any differently?

Zell had to move, rolling out of the way of several more tentacles.

_What about the Lunar Cry? Could that count for something? Adel came down along with the monsters last time . . . now there was an evil sorceress. Monsters have definitely been on the increase since the last Lunar Cry. That's to be expected, but what if Adel's evil energy somehow tainted the malboros, making them . . . different?_

"Damn, I hate thinking," he mumbled to himself.

The mother malboro was shrieking fit to deafen them all. But with Squall down, and Nida and himself out of options, he didn't know what to do.

Suddenly Squall cried out. The vine had snapped away from the tree it had been connected to, and now the SeeD was being pulled at great speed towards the mutated malboro's open, drooling mouth. 

"Squall!"

Zell didn't think - he ran. Somehow he grabbed Squall's hands, catching him just as he'd been about to get digested. Zell dug his heels into the ground, leaning backwards, pulling with every ounce of strength he had left in him. Nida appeared at his side, raising Squall's gunblade over his head and preparing to strike the tentacle. But something knocked him down before he could.

"This was _such_ a bad idea," Squall moaned. Zell could hear his friend's arms being stretched to their limit, and wondered how long he could hold him for.

"I thought . . . you always wanted to die . . . in battle . . . You should be loving this!"

"I'm only nineteen! I meant when I was older!" 

"Why waste time?"

"Well, for a start, Rinoa's birthday's coming up and she'd kill me if I missed it . . ."

"You'd already be dead!"

"Oh, she'd find a way."

They both shut up as a roaring shadow covered the sky above them, searing away the canopy. Zell looked up, startled to see the brilliantly red Ragnarok airship hovering over them. The heat it generated began to fill the nest, and the mother malboro started to scream in fury.

The stairs of the Ragnarok dropped, even in midair, and Zell could see someone hanging out of the exit hole.

"Hang on!"

He thought it was Rinoa - she always wore blue.

_What the hell do they plan to -_

Zell yelled in surprise as the malboro's huge evil face was suddenly blasted with laser fire, exploding from the Ragnarok's weapons system at the front of the cockpit. Zell let go of Squall in surprise, and the tentacle bounced up and over the malboro, flinging Squall several hundred metres upwards into the air.

"Damn!"

But the Ragnarok's arm snapped down and its metallic claw caught Squall before he could start plummeting back down to the ground. Zell dove out of the way as the ship descended further, its burners nearly setting the forest alight.

"HEY!!! BACK UP! BACK UP!" Zell screamed, waving wildly at Rinoa.

The claw holding Squall had lowered to the ground, and it opened, dropping the dazed SeeD a little more heavily than was necessary. Zell was busy dodging the flying acid that was erupting from the malboro's face as laser fire ripped through it. With a great belch of blood, its head drooped backwards, and it shrivelled in on itself. Zell grabbed a staggering Nida, hauling him away from the hole but sticking close enough to cast appropriate spells on any cocoons that were hit with the deadly acid. 

The Ragnarok continued to hover, but now ropes were dropping from the opened gangplank and SeeDs were sinking to the ground, attacking the tough cocoons with their weapons. Zell sat down before he fell down, watching the SeeDs go about freeing their fellow students.

"Man," he grinned at Nida, "will my Ma laugh when she hears about this!"

"I didn't find it very funny," Nida said with a horrified expression on his face.

***

Rather than find a clearing, the Ragnarok just landed beside the nest area, razing the entire area of trees in the process. There were now twenty-eight very groggy SeeDs and students sitting amongst the remnants of the malboro breeding ground, thirty-one if Zell, Squall and Nida were included. Rinoa rather thought they were, as she dashed down the steps of the airship and threw herself at Squall, knocking the young man off the tree stump he was sitting on.

"Hey, careful! I'm still alive, you know, no need to go all soft on me."

"But I thought . . . I was worried that . . ."

"Well, don't be," Squall smiled at her, somehow managing to sit up with Rinoa clinging to him. But she didn't want to let him go just yet.

"C'mon, that's everyone now." Rinoa gave him a brilliant smile. "Considering how badly things went, nobody got killed and no one was badly hurt -"

"Speak for yourself," Squall muttered under his breath. "You didn't fall down a cliff!"

"Oh, Dr. Kadowaki will sort that out. Come on, I wanna go back to the Garden and get an early night."

Squall caught her meaning and rolled his eyes. "Sheesh, Rinoa, if I have an early night it'll be to get some sleep. I'm shattered."

She pouted. "Awww, you big meanie!" But the pout cracked into a grin, and she climbed off him as he got to his feet. Wrapping her arm around his waist, she discreetly helped to support his ankle, and breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the top of the stairs, where Irvine, Quistis, Selphie, Xu and Dr. Kadowaki greeted them. Zell and Nida weren't far behind them.

"Looks like that's it," Quistis said, and her mouth twitched into a smile. 

_Something always goes wrong,_ Rinoa thought, unable to prevent her own smile of amusement, _but we always get through it. Always!_

"Not quite," Selphie said, still itching at the wound she'd aggravated again by flying the Ragnarok into battle. "We still have one thing left to do."

***

When everyone was aboard, Selphie sat on the gangplank with Irvine. Squall and Rinoa watched from the top of the stairs, as Selphie summoned Ifrit.

The Guardian Force completely seared away the nest, the eggs and the malboro corpses, as well as half the surrounding tree population. But at least they wouldn't have to deal with another queen malboro ever again.

The four friends were barely back inside when the gangplank sunk up into the side of the ship, closing off the exit. They made their way to the cockpit. Squall's ankle still ached a little, and was awkward to move, but a few Cure spells had eased the majority of the pain and he enjoyed making Rinoa keep up with his long strides again.

"You realise we probably just destroyed an entire new species of malboro?" Rinoa said tentatively.

Squall thought about giving her an intelligent answer, but threw that idea out of the window.

"Who cares?" he mumbled. "Let's just go home."

***THE END***

  
All characters owned by Squaresoft. 


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